At least 31 people, including a five-year-old child, have been shot dead at a palm oil plantation in Indonesia's rebellious Aceh province.
Police and rebels blamed each other for the killings that swept East Aceh district yesterday.
The victims were plantation workers and were shot down when lining up for their monthly payment, according to a local police chief.
A senior GAM rebel official denied any involvement in the killings, blaming the military, which he said was patrolling in a village after an attack on a security post in the area the previous day.
"They asked them [villagers]: 'Who attacked the security post?'. . . Then they lined them up and opened fire," he said.
Hundreds of people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the province this year despite several rounds of high-level peace talks between Jakarta and the rebels.
The fate of the resource-rich province on the northern tip of Sumatra island will be one of President Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri's biggest headaches, although she is unlikely to give in to independence demands.
Indonesia sent 1,500 troops to Aceh last month to reinforce about 30,000 police and soldiers already there. Some human rights groups fear Ms Megawati will give the armed forces free rein to deal with the rebels.